Month: September 2007

Back when I published some HDR images from Berlin i promised to put some more images from IFA online. My main mission was to do a presentation at a press conference, but I managed to give the exhibition a visit and snap some images of both the IFA and a bit of Berlin as well. Here they are.

Big screen. Beautiful lady.

And I mean really big screens.

USB jewellery. I don’t smell an instant success here.

Berlin. Hip city.

This image looks pretty boring and average. But it gets an extra edge when you know that the Berlin Wall used to run exactly where the paving stones are laid down in the tarmac…

I do quite a bit of travelling. Most places in Norway are accessible through public transport but I used to prefer using my own car because that is much faster. Especially if you have to change transport on the way. Using public transport you’re also limited to specific schedules.

But lately I have started preferring the much more environmentaly friendly public transport like trains, boats and even long distance busses. Now it saves me a lot of time. Why?

Internet connectivity. Two hours in a car driving gets you there. But apart from that it’s a waste of time. Two hours on a train has turned into very productive hours. Norway has pretty good coverage of Edge and 3G. On my last boat trip from Bergen to Balestrand I could turn the four hours of travelling into productive work. Emailing, answering comments on the blog I work on for the NRK, NRKbeta. Getting some answers from people all over the world through IM. I had a reasonably good internet connection through my mobile on the entire trip. Something between 90 and 160 kbps. Not broadband, but enough to make me productive.

I know that I am no average person when it comes to how I spend my time and what I need to be productive. But more people might want to choose productive transportation as they get laptops, iPhones and all kinds of devices with internet connectivity. To be able to spend more time working and having fun online.

But we need to fix the pricing, speed and stability.

I like the fact that during Live Earth they made note of the fact that buying music online is environmentaly friendly. And I still like the old slogan of the first online only newspaper in Norway, called “Nettavisen”: “Ten of ten trees prefer Nettavisen”.

Actually the internet in general is environmentaly friendly. Especially here in Norway where we power our server farms with hydro electric power.

And by the way. This post was written on board a bus on my way from Kongsberg to Oslo.

(I have also written a Norwegian version of this article over at NRKbeta)

EMI is my favorite record company. They got that position when they stopped using DRM on their music back in April. The marketing value of that move was probably worth millions.

Yesterday I did a presentation for the nice people at EMI Norway and during my preparation I did a Google search for “buy high quality music“. And guess what. The EMI press release about leaving DRM in iTunes is hit number one.

The press release was linked to from thousands of web sites. The page with the press release has Google Page Rank 7 while the home page of EMI Music has page rank 6.

In other words. That page will get traffic for years. Traffic from people wanting to buy music etc. And this is where EMI (and I guess most companies that publish press releases) miss something important.

What’s on that page? That valuable page with a very high page rank. The press release. And some site navigation.

Companies should plan for this. When they have a press release that will get some attention they should think about what they put on that page. They should think about what words they use. And how they can lead people further into their web site.

So for EMI this page is very valuable. And they still have possibilities. As long as they don’t change all the content they can add stuff to this page and keep their Google Page Rank.

Next week I am going to do a presentation at a big event for the IT industry in Norway. I am going to talk about new technologies, trends in social media and how consumers and employers gain more control.

About why you should let your employers blog. How IM and social networks can be important tools and so on.

Before I finish my presentation I would like to hear what my readers have to say. Do you have any stories to share?

Am I the only one with the “mailbox is over the size limit”-problem at work?

Are they banning certain sites or services?

Do you feel that you have the tools and flexibility you need?

Is it good for your CV to have a popular blog?

Any thoughts you might have!

You can be completely anonymous when posting comments here. There will be a lot of CTOs and CEOs in the audience. Let us teach them how we want to work.

You’re in this far away country and ask the taxi driver to recommend a nice restaurant. He drives you to one and when you leave the cab you clearly see that the driver receive two dollars from the waiter. You know that taxi drivers might not be the best ones to recommend restaurants, but you get slightly annoyed anyway. That bastard didn’t take you there because the restaurant was good. Simply because he got paid.

The next day another taxi driver does the exact same thing. Drives you to a restaurant and get paid two dollars from the waiter. But this time you’re more than happy and actually tip him an extra three dollar.

Why? Some words.

The second driver tells you immediately that in this city he’ll get paid by the waiter no matter what restaurant he takes you to. The amount varies. One restaurant gives him five dollars some give him less. He tells you that he’ll take you to a restaurant that will only give him two dollars because that one is much better than the one that gives him five. He wants you to have a nice meal. That’s more important for him than the extra three dollars.

That was enough. You’re happy. Of course this guy deserves that tip. But really, the situations are identical. Taxi driver. Recommendation. Get paid two dollars. The story made the difference.

Think carefully and tell the right story the next time you want to sell something, hire someone or want to impress your spouse.